EDITORIAL: 'It was very loud, very loud'

Published: Friday, September 21, 2012 at 10:28 AM.

The anti-drug and anti-terrorism training staged this week by the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, based in Mississippi, was plenty realistic. Just like a genuine counterterrorism operation, it was planned quietly, launched without warning, and scared the daylights out of folks nearby.
That would be OK if it were the real thing — a secret mission to wipe out bad guys along the waterfront in Mary Esther. But it wasn’t.
Boats from the Navy school cruised through Santa Rosa Sound on Tuesday and, just before 6 p.m., opened fire with a thundering cacophony of explosions and machine gun rat-a-tat-tats. The phony firefight — the trainees were said to be using blanks — lasted about 20 minutes. All of this within feet of homes and businesses.
“It was very loud, very loud,” a soundside resident said later.
Scary, too. The boats were not easily identifiable. On at least one, men wore red berets and black shirts — not your standard military duds.
Perhaps it would’ve been a fun show to watch, sort of like the annual Billy Bowlegs invasion, if the trainers had thought to notify local authorities. Apparently, they hadn’t. A spokesman for the small-craft school guessed the notification process “didn’t work out perfectly this time.”
That’s an understatement. Alarmed residents called Fort Walton Beach police and the Sheriff’s Office. Even somebody at Hurlburt Field called the Sheriff’s Office to ask who was “shooting off machine gun rounds” in Santa Rosa Sound. The Air Force and the Coast Guard were caught unawares.
There’s no excuse for the boat school’s secrecy.
The next time the guys in red berets want to wage make-believe combat in Okaloosa County, they ought to call first. That way, officials can warn residents, business owners and other boaters that they won’t have to duck and cover.
Better yet, the small-boat trainers ought to confine their war games to the vast, empty Eglin reservation, which is far better suited to this kind of activity.

Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published
without permission. Links are encouraged.

The anti-drug and anti-terrorism training staged this week by the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, based in Mississippi, was plenty realistic. Just like a genuine counterterrorism operation, it was planned quietly, launched without warning, and scared the daylights out of folks nearby.
That would be OK if it were the real thing — a secret mission to wipe out bad guys along the waterfront in Mary Esther. But it wasn’t.
Boats from the Navy school cruised through Santa Rosa Sound on Tuesday and, just before 6 p.m., opened fire with a thundering cacophony of explosions and machine gun rat-a-tat-tats. The phony firefight — the trainees were said to be using blanks — lasted about 20 minutes. All of this within feet of homes and businesses.
“It was very loud, very loud,” a soundside resident said later.
Scary, too. The boats were not easily identifiable. On at least one, men wore red berets and black shirts — not your standard military duds.
Perhaps it would’ve been a fun show to watch, sort of like the annual Billy Bowlegs invasion, if the trainers had thought to notify local authorities. Apparently, they hadn’t. A spokesman for the small-craft school guessed the notification process “didn’t work out perfectly this time.”
That’s an understatement. Alarmed residents called Fort Walton Beach police and the Sheriff’s Office. Even somebody at Hurlburt Field called the Sheriff’s Office to ask who was “shooting off machine gun rounds” in Santa Rosa Sound. The Air Force and the Coast Guard were caught unawares.
There’s no excuse for the boat school’s secrecy.
The next time the guys in red berets want to wage make-believe combat in Okaloosa County, they ought to call first. That way, officials can warn residents, business owners and other boaters that they won’t have to duck and cover.
Better yet, the small-boat trainers ought to confine their war games to the vast, empty Eglin reservation, which is far better suited to this kind of activity.